American Chestnut and Beech. Saying goodbye. 1:30 am pickup.

Short because: wedding in two days, drive to New Hampshire in one, various papers due, plus packing and prep.

I did my one day vision quest, it was great. Need to do something like that more often, it really enriches my whole life so deeply. Perhaps more on the details of that and the realizations I had later. Suffice it to say I got good answers to all my questions, plus a lot of really beautiful nature and some unexpected insights.

Was up till about 3am last night because the friend I was picking up from the airport (who is also going to this wedding) had their already late flight delayed further. Thankfully, I don't have any early appointments so I was able to sleep in till around 10am and I'm doing alright.

Getting a haircut and beard trim for the wedding today from a... I want to call them old-timey, but they are obviously modern. What's that called when ultra-modern people dress-up and decorate like old-timey, and work in more slow, artisanal ways, but keep the modern conveniences? In any case, I chose them for closeness and reviews, not ambiance, but I'm looking forward to the ambiance. Got to savor life in the moment yeah?

It's really wonderful staying at my parents house and having this massive forest in our backyard, I wish I had that for my future kids. I wish everybody who wanted it had it, it's sad how our green spaces and nature get taken away, especially for the poorest people. Everyone should have access to nature if they want it. My class is all about how. healing and stress-reducing that can be, plus it can inculcate a love of nature in children and then pro-environmental behavior, which we need to inculcate in everyone these days, for the sake of our survival as a species. (Not to mention the survival of other species).

It was bittersweet, in the vision quest sitting among a grove of beech trees that were slowly dying from some type of disease that targeted them. So much beauty, and nostalgia for my childhood home which had a lot of beech trees, and the sadness of things you love ending. I grief their loss, and am grateful for the beauty and joy they gave me, that makes me now sad of their passing. 

Maybe some of the beech trees will learn from the others that are sick and develop some protective measures, and some will survive. I hope so. But sometimes, like with the american chestnuts, the blight pretty much wipes them out altogether. Though I remember stumbling across a grove of american chestnuts that had been specifically bred to be resistant to chestnut blight. They weren't quite ready to go into the wild yet, but were getting there. People quietly doing beautiful things for future generations. Warms my heart and gives me hope.

Alright, bye for now, keep the flame burning.

-I Out

Divert all power to starboard thrusters. July 14th finish. More travel.

A short one because: I'm flying to Connecticut in two days and boy are my arms tired. There's a lot to do to prepare for the trip, in those next two days, and there is a LOT to do, over the next several, to get everything done that needs to be done. I've got a large paper due Sunday, along with a medium paper, a bunch of readings (which will absolutely not all get done, that's low priority, but I have to do at least some of them.) and a one day vision quest to satisfy the 16 hours of nature time activity I'm doing for my Nature Outdoors and Adventure Therapy class. Planning on doing that Saturday. So, anyhoo, busy. Plus cleaning up the house for our cat-sitter, and making sure I've packed everything I'm going to need for the VQ.

We are now officially in emergency mode. I like to imagine the command deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek, where they've been fired at and something has blown up, and they have to redirect all power to the front shields or what not. Emergency and life support systems only. That starts now and goes until July 14th, so... bye for a while. I'll try to keep posting, but expect them to be shorter, like this one.

We have to write how many papers this week?

companionate love, mini vision quest, Travel!

So, this last weekend, I traveled to a nephew's bar mitzvah. It was maybe 5 times as much travel as it was actual time at the bar mitzvah and after-party, but it was really good food, and the nephew did a really good job. They obviously worked really hard, are really intelligent, and care about fairness and justice and such, if their speech is any indication. It was sweet. But it did mean I was having to write papers and read textbooks on plane rides and car drives.

That explains why I didn't remember to post a blog over the weekend. It was quite busy. It is immediately back to the grind as well. Just when I leave for the wedding it goes into overdrive as well, for the last few weeks. Looking forward to July 15th, when classes end and I get a few weeks of real rest. That is to say, time to scramble to do all the stuff I haven't had time for because of school work. Hopefully take an actual break in there as well.

Suzannah just made some amazing decaf coffee ice cream in a novel way: frozen decaf coffee, plus vanilla ice cream, in a blender. Apparently the blender can't handle the ice cubes well, it starts to overheat, but it tastes amazing. Quick google says you need liquid in with the ice and it should work well. I kind of want some now...

Lets see, what's coming up. Well, this weekend is just homework and prep for the trip, the trip itself will be mostly work, I may do a mini vision quest for my Nature Outdoors and Adventure Therapy class final project, and then I'll drive from my parents house in Connecticut to New Hampshire and celebrate my long-time friend getting married!

Currently reading (techincally listening to the audiobook): The Myths of Happiness, by Sonja Lyubomirsky. Interesting read, talks about hedonic adaptation (things that make you happy, or unhappy, you adapt to quickly, so dont' expect any external thing to make you happy long-term) and ways to avoid or mitigate it. I'm still in the beginning, but appreciation is part of it, enjoying what you've got, and adding little bits of novelty to your life. A

lso, most of the things you think will make you happy, won't, long term. You'll tend to just go back to your happiness set point. A great argument for not doing work that makes you miserable short term in the hopes that it will make you happy once you "make it". 

I suspect there is nuance to this, and having close meaningful relationships definitely does contribute to happiness and well-being. But relying on romantic sizzle is a bad long-term plan, apparently. Spicy love turns into companionate love, if you're lucky, but doesn't stay in the limerence fireworks phase forever. The myth that it does or should is just hurting people with unreachable expectations. Interesting read.

OK, that's all for this week. Though it's almost the weekend so I should be putting out another of these in a day or two, if I can stay on top of things.

Pillow Forts, Qwirkle, D&D

Looks like somehow two more weeks have passed. Last weekend is understandable, but two weekends ago I don't know what I was doing that made me forget about blogging... Hmm. it was a friends birthday... Oh, that was good one. I was feeling a little left out of the awesome bachelor party weekend gaming getaway, so me and Suzannah has a fun date, where we made a pillow fort and played games in it (a fun pattern matching game called Qwirkle). The cats joined in and it was fun and novel and cozy. I guess I really like small spaces, forts and such. 

What I really wanted to play was what all my friends were playing, which was a tabletop roleplaying game. It's hard to describe if you don't know what it is, but it's kind of a cooperative storytelling game, with some tactical rules and numbers and dice to determine if you can do things, with pencil and paper to keep track of all the information of the "character" you're playing. Some of my fondest memories are playing this kind of game with friends, but it tends to run late, and take a good chunk of time, so once I started getting really busy, I had to stop. Though I had to stop before that point, because it is an in-person game, and I had moved away from all my friends after college.

In any case, I'm playing with the idea of trying it out again, as a way to add something fun back into my life. It can get easy to just work constantly and then get burnt out. As it is though, I'm not sure I have the time for it, still. Grad school is grueling. I'm considering going down to part time next semester, but it does mean I'll be in school for that much longer. I kind of have to make a preliminary decision soon, as registration for fall semester classes is this coming Wednesday (which is also the day I travel out East for that friend's wedding.)

OK, I've got two of these to write so I'll stop there for this one.